‘Ah! Tils, darling. You look ravishing as always,’ Clive said through a smile that was just that little bit too wide.
They were in the drawing room and it was four o’clock, which in the Chambers household meant afternoon tea. Mrs Beckett and Nick’s mum had brought out all manner of food so far, and Nick knew this would only be the first wave. His dad and uncle were sitting together in their favourite armchairs, which were very conveniently placed for the coffee table piled high with food. Nick, Bertie and Clive were standing by the massive fireplace sipping their tea. Nick hadn’t realized that Clive’s relationship with his sister had progressed to the level where she would ask him for the Easter weekend, so his unexpected arrival that afternoon had been a surprise, and not an altogether good one.
‘Oh gosh, Clive, don’t be an idiot,’ Tilly said as she breezed into the room, closely followed by a dishevelled, red-eyed but smiling Ed and a laughing Arabella. ‘I still haven’t changed since doing the horses.’ She gave Clive a kiss on the cheek through a mouthful of sandwich and Clive smiled at her, but Nick could see his jaw was tight for some reason and his eyes had flashed at the ‘idiot’ comment. Clive could dish it out, but he had always had a problem taking it when it came to being teased.
‘I took Eddie to see the horses, Uncle Nicky,’ Arabella said proudly, skirting Clive to get to the sandwiches. ‘He said he’d never even patted a horse before in his entire life. Can you imagine?’ Arabella’s face was totally aghast, as if a life without horses was a fate worse than death.
‘I think we’ve remedied that one now, kid,’ Ed said, ruffling Arabella’s hair and giving her a wink.
‘But Ed, I thought you said you were allergic to horses and more than a little scared of them,’ Nick said, his lips twitching.
‘Arabella has her own special brand of flooding therapy,’ Ed told him. ‘I’ve brushed a horse …’
‘Groomed.’
‘Sorry, Bels, I mean I’ve groomed a horse, I’ve fed a horse, I’ve shovelled a horse’s crap, I’ve even sat on a horse.’
‘He’s cured!’ Arabella shouted, smiling and throwing her hands in the air. Nick took in Ed’s red-rimmed eyes and slightly swollen, mottled face, and pressed his lips together.
‘Yes, well,’ Tils said, her voice shaking with suppressed laughter. ‘He was only bitten once I suppose, and Merlin didn’t quite manage to throw him off, so I’m sure he’s much more keen on horses now, darling.’
Ed was smiling at Tils. It was obvious to Nick why he had endured his equine torture session. He’d been in Tils and Arabella’s company for only twenty-four hours now, but it appeared that he was firmly under their spell. Clive must have also noticed the way Ed was looking at Tils, and he wasted no time in reaching out and pulling her into him to plant a possessive kiss on the side of her head. Ed looked away quickly from this display and hurried over to the coffee table to grab a cake.
‘Alright, squirt?’ Clive said to Arabella, giving her a forced smile.
‘Fine thanks,’ Bels returned in a small voice, retreating from him and her mother to the other side of the room to stand next to her grandfather and her great-uncle. Nick frowned. The way Bels shrank away from Clive seemed odd; she was a very outgoing child. He glanced at Goodie and noticed that she was staring at Clive; then her gaze dropped to Clive’s hand on Tils’s shoulder, where Nick could see he had Tils in an almost white-knuckle grip. She eventually caught Clive’s eye but he looked away from her cold, unblinking expression quickly.
‘So, Goodie, how does a girl like you get involved in the security gig?’ Clive asked, his grip on Tils’s shoulder easing. ‘Seems an odd choice for someone of your build.’
‘Odd in what way?’ she asked, her expression neutral.
‘Well, don’t you need to have a bit a muscle behind you in your business?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well … well, I mean …’ Clive waved a hand in Goodie’s direction to illustrate his point. ‘You’re not exactly Goliath.’
‘Correct me if I’m wrong but didn’t David win?’ Goodie asked, her head cocked to the side. Clive huffed out an annoyed breath.
‘You know what I’m getting at. Surely you’d be at a disadvantage in hand-to-hand combat.’
‘You think that because I am smaller than you I am weaker?’ Goodie asked, her tone sounding curious rather than confrontational.
‘It’s just a matter of simple physics,’ Clive told her. ‘I can’t think what would possess a woman to go into your field to be honest.’
Goodie smiled at him, but it was so cold that Nick actually had to hold back a shiver. ‘No, I imagine you can’t,’ she said, taking a step back and then skirting around the group to walk over to Arabella.
‘You’re crazy if you ask me, mate,’ Clive said under his breath to Nick, who was staring across the room watching Goodie squat down in front of Arabella. She had pulled a silver coin out of her pocket and was making it flip over and over on top of her fingers before making it disappear and reappear behind Arabella’s ear. ‘Wouldn’t want a dolly-bird managing my security if I was being threatened left, right and centre.’ Arabella was giggling now as she attempted the same trick under Goodie’s guidance.
‘From what I’ve seen she can handle herself, Clive,’ Nick said levelly. He wondered how he had missed the low-level misogyny Clive tended to spout.
‘Alright, Whitney,’ Clive sneered, annoyed that his friend wasn’t instantly agreeing with him.
‘Careful, mate,’ Nick said, turning away with reluctance from Goodie and Arabella and fixing Clive with a stare.
‘God!’ Clive huffed, lifting his hands up in surrender. ‘What’s happened to you? Can’t take a bit of ribbing all of a sudden? You make that joke yourself all the bloody time. I don’t care what you say; she wouldn’t stand a chance against any decent-sized man. You’re nuts if you think she’s your best option.’
*****
‘I. Will. Not,’ Arabella bit out, her face flushed with anger.
‘Oh come on, darling,’ Tils said, making another grab for her hand. ‘You just can’t stay in your jodpurs for tonight. You promised. Please. Just this once,’ she cajoled. Clive was shifting impatiently next to them, rubbing the back of his neck and staring up at the ceiling. The three of them were at the bottom of the stairs that Goodie and Salem were coming down. They hadn’t heard her approach – even in heels Goodie could be silent when she wanted to. Tils was wearing a fairly functional black dress which looked like it had been chosen in a hurry. Her eye make-up was smudged and her dark hair was haphazardly pinned on top of her head but she was still stunningly beautiful – like a feminine version of Nick: tall, long limbs, elegant.
‘Stop pandering to the little brat,’ Clive bit out, and Tils gave him a sharp look. ‘Drag her upstairs and force her to get changed. This is a pointless waste of time.’ What Goodie saw next stopped her in her tracks. Clive reached down and closed his large hand around Tils’s slim forearm, dragging her upright from her squat in front of Arabella forcibly. Goodie caught a wince of pain in Tils’s expression, and when she looked at a wide-eyed Arabella she knew she wasn’t the only one who saw it. Tils yanked her arm out of Clive’s grip.
‘Just go in without us, Clive,’ she hissed at him. Clive threw his hands up the air in exasperation and Goodie saw Tils flinch.
‘Arabella,’ Goodie called from her position halfway up the stairs, and three sets of surprised eyes turned to look up at her. ‘Why don’t you come with me? You can show me your room. Maybe there’s something you wouldn’t mind wearing? You would make your babushka happy.’
Arabella started climbing the stairs towards Goodie, who stretched out a hand.
‘What’s babushka?’ she asked.
‘It is how we say grandma in Russia,’ Goodie told her as Arabella’s small hand slipped into hers. Goodie turned to look at Tilly, who mouthed ‘Thank you’ as she backed away down the corridor. Clive paused for a minute at the bottom of the stairs. Goodie thought he was going to say something until she heard Salem vibrate with a low growl. Clive’s gaze snapped to the dog, whose teeth were bared, and backed away to follow Tils.
‘What’s wrong with Salem?’ Arabella asked as they walked up the stairs.
‘Salem is picky,’ Goodie explained. ‘He doesn’t like some people.’
‘Me too,’ Arabella muttered darkly.
When they reached her room, Arabella stopped in the doorway and pointed an accusing finger at the offending items of clothing she had been so adamant not to wear: a sailor dress and white tights. She was eyeing it like it was a MRSA-covered sackcloth. ‘I am not wearing that.’
Goodie shrugged.
‘Find something you will wear that your babushka would like for the party.’
‘She only likes skirts and dresses on little girls. It’s not fair. I don’t want to wear stuff like that.’
Goodie gently pulled her into the room and sat on the bed next to the dress and facing away from the doorway, patting the space next to her. Arabella jumped up onto the bed, tilted her jaw at a stubborn angle and crossed her arms over her chest.
‘I do not like these things either,’ Goodie told her. Arabella let her arms drop and looked up at Goodie with a confused expression.
‘But you’re wearing a dress,’ Arabella informed her. ‘A really pretty dress.’ Goodie nodded; her midnight-blue dress had a high neck, long sleeves and was close fitting to just above her knees where it flared out subtly. She knew it was beautiful; she knew her hair and make-up were perfect.
‘I hate this,’ she said, grabbing a handful of blue material, ‘and this,’ she indicated her face and hair, which was swept up off her neck in an elegant style, ‘with such intensity that sometimes I feel like they’re actually burning my skin.’
Arabella’s mouth dropped open and her eyes widened. ‘But why do you wear them then?’
‘In my job I have often had to wear clothes I dislike. I have been in outfits far, far worse than this. And I have had to also be … nice to people I hate whilst wearing clothes I detest in places that made my skin crawl.’
‘Why?’ Arabella asked, her hand moving to stroke Salem’s head as it rested on Goodie’s knee.
‘Sometimes I needed information from them. Sometimes it was to get closer to someone I needed to … talk to. There are some reasons I cannot tell you, not just because you are a child, but because they are secret and, the type of secret they are means that if they were known it could hurt people.’
‘Wow,’ Arabella breathed. ‘Really secret, secret then. But how can you stand to wear this stupid stuff if you hate it so much?’
‘There are times where I have had to wear camouflage to blend into the natural environment. In a jungle this would be greens and browns, in the snow it was white. I wore that to get the job done, because it gave me an advantage, made me more powerful than my target; this is how I look at these clothes and this make-up: it is my camouflage, it gives me power.’
Arabella nodded. ‘I like the idea of camouflage; that’s cool.’
Goodie smiled and stood up from the bed. ‘You’ll change then?’ Arabella nodded and jumped up to started toward her wardrobe, but stopped when Goodie laid a hand lightly on her arm. ‘You know that nobody has the right to hurt you or your mother, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ Arabella said, turning to Goodie and tilting her curious face to the side.
‘If that happens you tell me; understand? I saw you with a phone earlier. Have you got it with you?’
Arabella nodded, grabbing a stuffed polar bear off her bed and unzipping the back. ‘Mummy got me this for when I use the bus from school. It’s dead boring though; can’t even get onto the internet or anything, just make calls.’
Goodie reached for the phone and Arabella handed it over.
‘I am going to put my number into this. Do not use it unless you need to.’ Goodie slipped it into the back of the polar bear and zipped it up.
‘Okay,’ Arabella agreed easily, her face lighting up at a new contact going into her phone.
Goodie smiled at her excited face, her heart clutching when she thought of Clive’s fingers digging into Arabella’s mother’s arm. ‘Now get dressed or we’ll be late and disappoint your babushka.’
*****
Nick leant his head back against the wall outside Bella’s room and closed his eyes. He had the almost overwhelming urge to punch something, but stifled this with the knowledge that Goodie would not have wanted him to overhear that particular conversation. He had insisted Goodie come to the party tonight just like he’d made her have her meals with his family and spend time with them over the last two days. He wasn’t stupid; he could read between the lines of what Goodie was saying, and he was beginning to realize that her past might be a good deal darker than he had predicted.
